


if you help me to start again (I'll be there for you in the end)

by moxiemorton



Category: Pitch Perfect (Movies)
Genre: F/F, Music and Lyrics AU, just let me have this, literally the script of Music and Lyrics verbatim
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-23
Updated: 2018-09-25
Packaged: 2019-07-01 05:17:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15767376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moxiemorton/pseuds/moxiemorton
Summary: After a decade of inactivity, washed-up musician Beca Mitchell is finally given a golden opportunity back to relevancy by writing a new hit single for a teen pop-star. Battling the clock and her inability to make even the simplest rhymes, Beca enlists the help of the most unlikely and unusual girl she's ever met.AKA - the entire script of the Hugh Grant/Drew Barrymore movie Music and Lyrics copied word for word but with bemily





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since I've hit a major block I figured the best way to start writing again is to literally lift the words of a 2007 romcom into a fanfic. This is 100% self-indulgent so please bear with me.
> 
> disclaimer: I have absolutely no ownership of Music and Lyrics and since a majority of the words in this fic are from the movie, I guess Warner Bros owns this fic now

It’s a beautiful, sunny day and Beca walks down Lexington Avenue with seething annoyance.  

To be more accurate, it’s seething defeat and embarrassment, but she’s faced enough of that these past few years for it to translate into irritation, one that increases with every step she takes and with every pedestrian she passes. 

There are dozens of people passing her by on the ten-block march back to her apartment, and yet no one even glances in her direction. The only effort she’s making to cover her face are light-lensed sunglasses; if people know who she is, they would recognize her through even the darkest Ray-Bans. 

Shows just how relevant she really is in this day and age. 

Relieved to reach her apartment after what feels like a brutal walk of shame, Beca rips off her sunglasses and gives the street one last look. The door opens instantly at her touch, her doorman pulling it open from the other side before she even has a chance to push on the handle. “Afternoon, Ms. Mitchell,” he greets. 

“‘Sup, Tommy,” she says, breezing past him towards the elevator and snatching up her dry cleaning on the way.

It’s certainly a perk, living in a full-service apartment, but on days like these, Beca feels like she doesn’t deserve this amount of luxury. Her footsteps make no sound on the plush carpet hallway, and the soft swish of the plastic covering her dry cleaning is oddly magnified. 

She shoulders open her door and flinches when a distinctly male voice suddenly welcomes her into the apartment from within. 

“All right! There she is.” 

“Oh, Jesus. Okay, Jesse, sure. Barge right in, why don’t you?” 

“You gave me a key, Becs.” 

“Yeah, for emergencies.” 

“This counts.” 

Beca scoffs and throws down her dry cleaning. “Why? Because you realized you’re a worse manager than Tim Collins?” 

“All right, listen,” Jesse starts, following Beca into the kitchen, a beer from her fridge already in his hand. “First, that was low and totally uncalled for. Second, I had _no_ idea it was a _rap_ battle; no one explained that part to me, I swear.”

It’s not the first time Jesse’s screwed up the details of a booking, and if he wasn’t her friend and an unwavering form of support, Beca would’ve fired him years ago. It’s honestly not a big deal, but Beca would rather not head blindly into a TV show briefing with the firm belief that she’d be able to perform her music and instead face some confused executives telling her that the show is a friggen rap battle. 

Though she’d never admit it out loud, she appreciates his efforts. “Beca Mitchell” is a dying name in the music industry, and the fact that Jesse could even grab hold of these meetings and gigs is a goddamn miracle considering she hasn’t produced any content in almost fifteen years. 

“It’s fine, dude,” she sighs, not even caring anymore. The meeting was a total bust anyway, whether or not it was for a competition Beca was totally unprepared for. “I mean, if anything I could’ve definitely taken Iggy. She’s never rapped a single verse a human could understand.” 

Jesse doesn’t seem placated by her indifferent response. “All right, listen,” he says again, “it was a careless mistake and I hate myself for it, but I’m not upset. And do you know why?”

She shrugs. “Because you stole one of my beers?”

“Be _cause_ ,” Jesse holds up the latest _Rolling Stone_ issue, ignoring her answer. “Of her.”  

Beca doesn’t recognize the girl on the cover, but she looks like the manifestation of the phrase “cultural appropriation.” She’s clearly white, clearly very pretty, and clearly trying to pull off a trendy form of an Asian religion by dressing up in mock-traditional attire. She’s obviously famous enough for readers to know her on a first-name basis, because that’s all that’s printed on the cover. 

“Stacie Conrad,” Jesse says proudly, like he’s showing off his honor roll daughter. “Biggest star in the world. Bigger than Demi and Taylor put together. And guess who she loves?” 

Beca gestures cluelessly. “I dunno…herself?” she guesses, eyeing the quote under Stacie’s name, _I don’t think anymore…I just exist,_ and cringing a little.  

Jesse looks too excited to play along with her antics. “ _You_ , Beca. She’s a huge fan of your music and she wants to meet you.”  

She takes the magazine from Jesse and glares at Stacie’s picture before flipping through the pages to her article. “This girl is a teenager, dude. She was like, a toddler when I was still making music.” She tosses the magazine back. “She should  _not_ have been listening to my music at that age.”  

“Well, she did. And thank god she did, because now you’ve got a high-ranking fan!” 

The intercom buzzes just then, cutting through whatever response Beca was going to shoot at her manager. “Hang on,” she groans, halting Jesse’s enthusiasm and striding over to the panel just outside the kitchen. “What up, Justin?” she calls into the speaker. 

“Beca, I have an Emily here for you,” Justin’s voice warbles through the apartment. He and Tommy usually take shifts together as doormen, one at the desk and the other at the door, and though Beca’s always considered it overkill, she has to admit they make quite the duo. 

She trades a confused glance with Jesse. “Sounds fun. And who’s Emily?” 

“She’s here to do your plants.” 

Jesse raises his eyebrows at her. “Uh,” Beca says awkwardly. “But…Ashley usually does my plants.” 

“She says she can be in and out in five minutes,” Justin insists, “and that this is really the best time for her.” 

“Well she sounds pretty unstoppable. Whatever man, send her up.” She relents, not wanting to bother her doorman over something dumb like a plant water-er. “Sorry, where were we? Stacie Conrad?” 

“Is that a euphemism? ‘Watering plants’?” Jesse asks, grinning. 

“Don’t be gross.” 

“You actually hired someone to water your plants? Seriously?” 

“Well, I have a lot of plants and I’m a forgetful person.” She jabs a finger at him. “You of all people should know that.” 

“Why do you even have all these plants?” 

Beca hesitates. “Be…cause…like, you know. I bring…people over…to like, uh. Entertain…” 

“You can say chicks, Becs. Be out and proud.”

“Oh, my god. Okay, I bring home _women_ , you pig, and one of them said something about plants making them feel comfortable.”

He raises an eyebrow as she shuffles distractedly through the _Stone_ magazine. “Is that true? _Plants_ make women more comfortable?” he scoffs. “Well, maybe if I had plants, I’d still be engaged.”

Now it’s Beca’s turn to scoff. “Yeah, I’m sure that was the issue. Not because your fiance was a cheating bitch but because you were missing the right sort of vegetation.” 

There’s a knock at her door and Beca holds up a hand to pause whatever comeback Jesse has in mind. 

Distracted with this weird new revelation of a teenage pop star requesting a meeting with her, Beca doesn’t think twice about opening the door to a total stranger. For one wild second she forgets it’s not Ashley, and she reels at the unfamiliar face. 

“Hi,” the girl says, smiling pleasantly, “I’m Emily Junk.” 

Emily is a head taller than Beca yet looks twenty years younger, but that might just be because she still has a youthful sparkle in her eyes. Beca probably lost that sometime back in her teen years when her career went down the toilet. 

“You didn’t get the message from Ashley?” she asks Beca. 

“No, I haven’t…uh. I just got home, I didn’t get a chance to check my —” 

“She was supposed to call you and let you know I’d be doing your plants for a couple days?” 

Emily poses it as a question and Beca doesn’t really know what to do with that, so she just shrugs. “Okay, cool. Great. Come on in, then.” 

“Oh, thank you!” Emily bustles in, either enthusiastic about watering plants or eager to be in and out like she’d told Justin. “I hope you have your own watering can, because Ashley told me everyone had their own, but this last guy, Mr. Krämer, who’s like, 80, he didn’t have his own watering can…” she fires off, unloading her bag, her scarf, and her jacket on top of Beca’s grand piano as she talks, “…so he starts yelling at me and screaming at me in German and unfortunately I’m fluent enough in German to know what he’s saying, and you haven’t been cursed at unless you’ve been cursed at in German.”

She finally pauses long enough to take a breath, and Beca, who’d been grabbing Emily’s stuff off the piano as she spoke a mile a minute, jumps in at the first sign of silence. 

“Oh, yeah, totally get what you mean,” she says quickly, transferring Emily’s bag and outerwear onto an armchair. “I dated a German g-…a German, once. Uh. Plant stuff is in the kitchen under the sink. _I_ have my own can,” Beca assures her.

Emily smiles appreciatively. “Oh, well, _vielen Dank_.”

Beca hears Jesse approach from behind her. “Hey, I’m Jesse. Beca’s manager.” She braces herself, unsure if she wants Emily to ask why she has a manager, but Emily just shakes his hand politely. 

“Oh. Emily Junk, nice to meet you,” is all she says before she turns inquisitively back to Beca. “So. Uh. Kitchen?” 

“…yeah?” 

“Great!” 

They stare after Emily as she bustles into the kitchen, and Beca hopes Jesse’s as taken back as she is.

“So. Stacie Conrad.” Jesse restarts, as if the last two minutes and Emily’s introduction never happened. “How cool is this, Becs?”

“Okay, wait, wait. Is this even a good idea? I mean, look at her.” She holds up the magazine as if Jesse hasn’t already seen it. “Hit me with some pros and cons about working with this diva.”

He rolls his eyes, already used to this practice of trying to convince Beca to do something she’s on the fence about. “Fine. Pros: she’s famous as hell, which means great publicity and loads of money for you.” 

“And the cons?” 

“No matter what you choose, we’re all going to die alone in the end,” Jesse deadpans. 

“All right. Famous as hell, publicity, money. Versus eventual, lonely death.” She clicks her tongue “I dunno man, I think we should think about it first.” 

Beca watches idly as Emily returns from the kitchen with a watering can and a spray bottle, a container of plant food tucked under her arm. “Okay, good,” Jesse’s saying, “because Stacie’s in town and she’s shooting a video tonight. She wants to meet both of us right after.” 

“Tonight? She wants to meet _tonight?_ ” Beca gapes, alarmed at the time frame.  

“Yes, _tonight._ What, you have somewhere better —?” 

“Ow!” 

They both flinch at the pained screech. Emily’s standing by the hedge cactus, sucking on her finger with an expression of agony. 

“Uh. You good?” Beca calls. 

Emily looks worriedly over at them. “Um. Do you have a Band-Aid? And antibiotic cream?” 

Beca hadn’t used either of those things since like, elementary school. “Well, uh, no. No, sorry,” she apologizes, already knowing Jesse’s going to give her shit about it later. 

“Oh. Okay.” Emily frowns. “Well then I’m gonna go, because, you know, this could get infected, and uh…it’s not clotting yet, but I mean I’m a little bit of a hypochondriac,” she says, unloading the plant care stuff from her arms and onto the grand piano before grabbing her jacket and bag. “You just, like. You can never be too careful, right? Uhh, well, anyway. I’ll come back and finish, so. Come again! I mean no, _you_ live here. _I’ll_ come again.” Emily’s already halfway out the door. “I’m gonna go get this looked at. I mean, you should _really_ have a first-aid kit here. Thank you! Have a good night, I’ll see you!” 

And she’s gone. 

They both stare after her, speechless. Beca clutches all the plant stuff in her arms, unable to bear the sight of so many dirty things touching her massively expensive piano, and trades a quiet look with Jesse. 

If he had suggested they’d just had a collective fever dream about Emily, Beca would’ve wholeheartedly agreed. It feels like she was only in the apartment for 2 minutes and yet spoke about 300 words.

“Weird,” is all she offers. 

“Don’t give her a key,” Jesse advises.

“Yeah, no.” Beca nods solemnly. “Anyway. You said something about tonight.”

“Yes. Tonight,” he says, grinning his boyish grin, “we meet Stacie.”

* * *

Beca’s not exactly proud of her tendency to judge books by covers — or in this case, pop stars by magazine covers — but she has to admit that there really isn’t a lot _inside_ this particular ‘book’ for her cover-based judgement to be much of a miss.

Stacie Conrad is exactly what Beca had expected based off of the _Stone_ cover. Tall. Pretty. Confident. Sexy. Beca watches, Jesse by her side, as Stacie dances and sings on a fog-covered set in her tiny, _tiny_ outfit with an array of well-muscled male backup dancers. The camera swivels around her silently, pausing here and there to zoom; she can see the director nodding at the screen, clearly liking what he sees.  

The cheap replicas of religious icons and the appropriative costumes have Beca cringing so hard that a migraine starts to form.

“She seems like a very spiritual kid,” Jesse comments. 

“Yeah. Sure looks like the religious type,” Beca says sarcastically as Stacie body rolls against one of her dancers. Maybe if she blocks out the lyrics, the song can be catchy. But Beca’s pretty sure it has perverted and destroyed several musical genres and cultural traditions in the span of three minutes.

“And cut!” someone calls from the back, and the crew bursts into cheers and applause as Stacie and her dancers melt out of their final poses.

Beca is 99% sure this chick is _not_ the kind of person she wants to collaborate with. She’s just about to turn to Jesse and suggest they reconsider this whole piggy-back-off-a-teenage-pop-star’s-fame ordeal when a man blooms out of the fog and approaches the pair.

“Hey, what’s up? I’m Luke, Stacie’s manager,” he says, stretching out a hand to Jesse. He barely looks like he’s old enough to legally drink, but he still faces them with an air of confident authority.

“Jesse Swanson. And you know Beca Mitchell.”

“Great to meet you,” Luke says, shaking her hand too.

“Nice to meet you too,” she greets politely, trying to ignore how fucking old she feels compared to all these baby-faced singers and dancers and managers. Her and Jesse are probably the oldest ones in this room, excluding the ancient-looking cameraman.

They follow Luke into an honest-to-god tent set up towards the side of the set, and Beca can smell the incense from twenty feet away. Stepping into the tent is a whole other animal. 

“Stace, this is Beca Mitchell and her manager, Jesse,” Luke introduces them. Beca squints through the dim lighting to vaguely make out Stacie’s shape sitting in a chair towards the back of the tent. 

Jesse, always the sweet-talker, doesn’t hesitate before switching on his charm. “Hey, we loved the video! Man, I wish I brought my niece, she _worships_ you.”

Stacie smiles and rises dramatically from her chair.

“Ms. Mitchell. It’s a pleasure,” she says. Contrary to her performance on the set, Stacie seems like a pleasant, well-mannered girl. She speaks calmly and almost too airily to be sober, but her eyes regard Beca steadily. “Your song ‘Titanium’ got me through my parents’ divorce when I was nine.” 

Beca blinks and races to find an appropriate response. “Really? Wow, that song has…a pretty intense beat for such a somber occasion, but uh, thank you.”

“I want my fans to know that same spiritual uplift that your music gave me.” 

“That…yeah, that’d be great. I have some old demos I can pull up and work with you on —”

“Oh, I don’t live in the past, Ms. Mitchell,” Stacie cuts in. Her tone remains polite but firm. “I want you to write a new song.”

Beca’s stomach bottoms out. “U-uh. Oh…kay, okay, wait —”

“You see, I recently broke up with my boyfriend,” she interrupts again. “We’d been together for almost _two_ months. It was a terrible experience.” She says this all with so much emphasis but with no emotion and Beca can’t get a grasp on the mood of the conversation. “But then I read a book by Guru Mathashavi called _A Way Back Into Love_ and it changed my life forever. That’ll be the title of our new song.” 

Jesse’s nodding along enthusiastically and Beca wants to punch him. 

“And in two weeks, when I open my tour at Madison Square Garden,” Stacie’s steamrolling on, “we’ll perform it together.” She smiles expectantly at Beca. 

“Okay, so um. There’s a _slight_ issue with —” 

“We also want to put the song on her new CD.” Luke quips in as if it’s Don’t Let Beca Finish Her Sentence Day. “And that’s pretty much finished. So we need the song by Friday.” 

“Fr…? Wait, you… _this_ Friday?” 

“Yeah, but don’t feel any pressure.” Luke gives her an easy smile. “We’ve got seven other retro artists working on “Way Back Into Love,” so if you blow it…well, we’re covered.”  

He doesn’t say it with any ill intentions; Beca recognizes the tone, the smile, the casualness of it all. To these people, this song is just a simple commission they’re requesting. They aren’t depending on her for a finished product as much as she’s depending on them for recognition and money.

Beca had forgotten about that side of the music business.

“Ms. Mitchell,” Stacie says, smiling serenely, and Beca realizes she hadn’t told this girl to call her by her first name. “Don’t look at this as a competition. If it’s meant to be, it will be. It’s destiny.” 

Which, coming from a hugely successful and relevant pop star, is admittedly very reassuring. Even if her philosophy stems from a corporate bookstore bestseller. Jesse nods supportively.

“…or not.” Stacie finishes, and the reassurance instantly goes down the drain.

* * *

“Holy shit, Jesse, I can’t do this,” Beca says as soon as they’re outside of the filming studio. “I haven’t written a song in years, dude. _Years_. How the fuck am I gonna write one by Friday? Is she crazy?” 

“All right, look.” Jesse stops them in the middle of the sidewalk and faces Beca seriously. “Can I be honest with you?” 

Beca wrinkles her nose. “What? No. I don’t like that tone. Don’t use that manager tone with me.” 

“We need this, Becs.” 

Jesse looks dead serious and it only makes her more nervous. “Ooookay,” she says with a smile, immediately deflecting, “let’s not get all desperate. We still have gigs lined up, right? We have that big club tour coming up with those weird DJs from Chicago, we have that huge set at Webster —” 

“They cancelled.”

Beca searches Jesse’s face for a hint of a joke. “Well. Shit. Really?”

“Look, we still got a few spots on the tour, all right?” Jesse says, resuming their walk. “But the big venues are cutting back on the lineup and unless you’re in the “in” crowd, you’re shit outta luck.”

And as if today hasn’t slashed away enough of her ego, Jesse just placed the final straw that sent it all crashing to the ground. She’d never even wanted to be this part-time, no-name DJ, mixing recycled EDM music at unknown clubs and local festivals to try and revitalize her name. While that’s all she could get recently, she still recalls owning stages at EDC and Bonnaroo and all those big league festivals when she was in her prime, hearing her name being chanted through a never ending sea of drugged-up fans.

“God, Jesse. Why didn’t you tell me this sooner? Why am I _just_ finding out, right after being hired to _write_ a _song_ , that I actually fucking suck?” 

“I’m telling you now, okay? Look, Beca, it’s been over ten years since your last hit single, and even longer since your last album. Music is evolving and you have to ride that flow too.” He puts a hand on her shoulder. “Hey. You’re doing that thing again. You’re spiraling.” 

Beca groans and rubs angrily at her temples. “Yeah, rightfully so.”

“We just have to refresh your image a little, okay? Then Webster Hall’ll be begging on its knees to get you back. You do a song for Stacie and you’ll get your mojo back, I promise.” 

Which is easier said than done, and she knows Jesse’s just keeping up his optimism for both their sakes. Playing instruments and mixing sounds she could do in her sleep. Writing lyrics? Writing lyrics to a love song? That isn’t the Beca Mitchell brand and they both know it. 

“I haven’t even produced anything new in…”

“I know,” Jesse sighs. “Just one song. _One_ song, Becs, and it’ll resurrect your reputation.”   

“Ugh, but it’s so…time-consuming. I have until Friday, how is that humanly possible?” 

“You need a lyricist,” he agrees. 

“No shit.” 

“Let me make a few calls, and we’ll pull something together, all right?” 

There’s nothing Beca can really do except nod reluctantly and trudge on home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hmu http://moxiemorton.tumblr.com/


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Desperation was never a good look for Beca, but beggars really can't be choosers at this point

Beca hates the lyricist.

Well, okay, she doesn’t _hate_ her. She’s just really really really hates working with her.

“Sorry,” she mutters as she plays random chords on her piano, though she has nothing to be sorry for. Despite treating it like a priceless heirloom, Beca hadn’t touched the keys in what feels like months. “Just a little…rusty.”

“Look if you don’t like the lyrics, be straight with me,” the lyricist, a woman who goes by the name ‘Calamity’ and nothing else, calls from the couch. Supposedly she’s the frontwoman of some edgy, wannabe badass band that Jesse had befriended a while back, and since they’re still relevant in the music industry, it couldn’t hurt to take advice from her.

But _god_ Beca’s not feeling these words. She can’t speak from experience, but she feels like a love song titled “Way Back Into Love” should be about…well, a way back into love.

“N-no, no, it’s not that,” she placates, not wanting to chase away the lyricst and her opportunity.  

“Maybe you want something more mainstream? Something a club DJ can remix?”

Beca narrows her eyes at Calamity just as an insistent series of knocks sound at her door. “Just…hang onto that thinly veiled insult for a moment, will you?” she says, getting up to answer the door.

It’s Ashley’s replacement, Emily. “Oh. Hi.”

“Hey,” she says shyly. “Uh. Justin said I could just come up?”

Beca smiles at the Band-Aid on her finger. “Wow. They didn’t have to amputate?”

“Oh, I know,” Emily says, laughing. “I made too big a deal about it. It’s just that I _hate_ infections.” She comes into the apartment and immediately puts her bag down on the piano. “Well, then again, who likes them? Oh, maybe the people who make penicillin.”

“Well there’s two sides to every story,” Beca agrees, taking Emily’s bag off the piano and catching her scarf and jacket before she sets those down too.

“True,” Emily says thoughtfully, evidently oblivious to Beca’s extreme prickliness towards keeping things off the piano. “Except for the Nazis. Can’t really see the other side of that argument.”

“Yeah, hey, I’m still here,” Calamity calls from the couch, and Beca scowls at her. Emily, on the other hand, lights up with an embarrassed smile.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t even see you there! Hi, I’m Emily Junk.”

“Right, yeah. This is…Calamity. Singer and songwriter for the band Evermoist,” Beca introduces, hating every name in that sentence. “She’s helping me with song lyrics.”

“Really? Well, I don’t want to get in your way, and it’s clear that I already have, so.” Emily smiles at the both of them. “I’m off to the kitchen. Don’t tell me, under the sink, I know.”

Beca closes her eyes briefly, realizing that she has two of the weirdest people in her apartment right now.

Calamity’s eyes follow Emily to the kitchen. “She’s kinda hot,” she comments idly.

“Great. Glad you enjoyed her.”

“She’s coming back in here, right?”

Beca looks around at all the plants in her living room. “Yeah, I hope so. Unless she goes straight back to whatever alternate dimension she came from.” She clears her throat, uncomfortable with how Calamity’s still gazing towards the kitchen. “Okay, how about…”

She picks a chord and matches her voice to its key.

_Give it up, I’m a bad hot witch  
I look real good, but I'm a nasty bitch _

Emily passes by, carrying the spray bottle and watering can, and shoots an offended glance at Beca.

_I can scream and claw and curdle your blood  
but you'll die on your way back into love _

 

She looks expectantly at Calamity, who’s already shaking her head. “No,” she says simply, and Beca has to appreciate her honesty. “Start on the minor third. Try that instead.”

She’s pretty sure a key change isn’t going to make this sound any better, but she obeys. “Right, okay: _Give it up, I’m a bad hot witch, I look real good, but I’m a_ —”

“Come on, man,” Calamity sighs, cutting her off. “You’re missing the point.”

There’s a sharp retort of, “oh, these shitty lyrics have a _point_ now?” hanging at the tip of Beca’s tongue, and she has to physically swallow to keep it inside. She tries not to get sucked into this lyricist’s short temper and elitist attitude.

“The first line, _give it up, I’m a bad hot witch_ is fine. But then it should be…”

“… _but with some magic, I just might switch_.”

They both turn slowly towards Emily, singing under her breath as she waters the pots on the windowsill. She continues humming, unaware of Beca and Calamity boring holes into her back.

“Uh. What did you say?” Beca calls.

Emily glances over her shoulder with surprise. “I don’t remember.”

Which sounds like bullshit, but Beca’s too excited to care. “Sounded like ‘but with some magic, I just might switch.’ Huh. That’s actually not bad.”

“But that’s not my lyric,” Calamity says, exasperated.

“Right. Right, but it’s a nice phrase.”

“Look, if you can’t handle the simplest of rhymes, why don’t we just let…” she gestures towards Emily, “… _plant girl_ here finish the lyrics?”

Emily cocks an eyebrow. “Well. As that very creative nickname suggests, I’m just here to cater to the plants.”

“And you’re doing great, really. Even though that one’s plastic.”

“Oh,” Emily says, jerking the watering can back from the fake plant and spilling water everywhere.

Calamity rolls her eyes, her tiny spoonful of patience having apparently run out. “This is a waste of time,” she says, heading towards the door. Emily, looking panicked at her disruptive involvement, turns from the plant.

“H-how about, um. _Let’s fly my broom to the stars above, and we’ll…charm our way back into love_.”

Beca stares. She stares and stares at Emily until it’s past the point of being weird and turns to Calamity, who looks completely fed up with the whole situation.

“What’s the next line? ‘Feelings, nothing more than feelings’? You people disgust me.” She throws open the door and rushes out of the apartment.

Emily looks horrified. “Oh, stars. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have gotten involved; I have no filtering system.”

“No, no, that’s fine,” Beca says honestly, having found a much better option. “Listen, have you ever, like. Written?” she asks stupidly.

“Well, everyone’s written at some point in their lives, right?” Emily shrugs, striding past Beca into the kitchen. “Well okay, not _every_ one, since illiteracy is a growing epidemic in this country. I write slogans for this weight-loss company that my sister runs.”

Which explains the effortless rhymes and spot-on meters.

“Do you ever listen to EDM?” Beca calls curiously, even though this girl does not strike her as a club-goer.

Emily surprises her with a, “Yeah, occasionally!” as she pokes her head out of the kitchen. “My sister _loves_ that stuff, like, she and her husband are always going to those festivals in the middle of nowhere. You know, the ones with all the fake hipsters and those mediocre DJs and the hard drugs and…oh, god. You’re one of them.”  

She follows Emily’s line of sight to an old Bonnaroo poster on her wall, the one from the year Beca’s name was listed in larger print near the top where the more prominent artists are.

“Oh, yeah. Well the hard drugs were mostly for the fans. It’d be pretty difficult for us mediocre DJs to mix on stage while high.”

“I am _so_ sorry.”

“No, it’s fine. You’re not wrong. But I do want to talk to you about maybe writing some lyrics for a song.”  

“But I don’t write lyrics,” Emily says, confused. “Especially not for songs that are on your roster.”

“Well, I’m fine with just kicking some ideas around. Maybe re-pot that ficus you just drowned while we’re at it.” Beca tries to keep her tone conversational and not like she’s desperately grasping at straws.

Emily doesn’t look convinced. “I don’t think so, I…I appreciate the offer, though.” She rushes past Beca and grabs her stuff before heading to the door. “I have to go babysit for my sister, now. I mean, her kids. She’s 34, so.” She waves as she swings the door shut behind her. “Thank you,” she calls before it closes shut.

But Beca’s not about to give up. Emily might be a weird, flitty, untethered soul, but she’s a damn good lyricist and with her entire career on the line, she can’t just let this plant girl walk away.

Beca catches up with her at the elevators, and she tries to ignore how Emily quickens her pace when she sees Beca following her. “Okay, listen,” she pants, embarrassingly winded from her short jog. “Do you know who Stacie Conrad is?”

“Oh, yeah! My niece loves her!” Emily says as she jabs repeatedly at the elevator button.

“Okay, well I’m writing a song for her, so if you change your mind about working with me, just _please_ , call me, okay? Or uh, if you’re in the mood for some mediocre DJs, I’m doing a set tonight at a small nightclub downtown. I can text you the address.”

Emily smiles politely. “Well, thank you.” She backs slowly into the elevator as the doors open. “I mean, I can’t, you know. But I’m sorry. _‘I just can’t,’ she says mysteriously_ ,” she narrates with a laugh. “But I can’t. I’m sorry. Thank you for the offer. Bye!”

The doors close and Beca’s left standing in front of the elevators like a total idiot.

* * *

Beca emerges from behind the stage into a crowd of middle-aged adults clamoring excitedly for her attention. They shove photos, posters, magazine articles, and markers in her face, demanding autographs and pictures like paparazzi.

“Okay, okay, break it up, people.” Jesse guides her through the mob, a protective arm around her shoulders. “If you want to see Beca perform again, check out her website for the tour dates!”

They cut through the dance floor to lose the more persistent fans in the crowd and make their way to the bar, where Beca leans heavily against the counter and cashes in her free drink ticket.

“Sweet set, Becs. They loved you.”

“I swear, they get older with every show,” Beca mutters, taking a swig of her beer.

Since she’d made a name for herself as a teenager by creating music geared towards an audience old enough to go clubbing and drinking, the hardcore fans who still remember dancing to her newly released singles all range from their late thirties to early forties. And while of course, the younger adults in the club still enjoy her music because they’re drunk and high and don’t give a shit what kind of beat they’re dancing to, the demographic of her most loyal fans hasn’t budged to a lower age.

“Maybe I should go back,” Beca says wistfully, watching the crowd jump around to the next set. “Get one of those moms to pay my rent for me.”

“That’s how we end up getting chased by angry husbands, dude.”

“That was _one_ time —”

“Hi.”

Beca whirls at the familiar but totally unexpected voice. Emily approaches them warily, giving a small wave and a tight smile. It feels weird, seeing her in public and without a watering can in hand, almost like seeing a teacher outside of the classroom. Next to her is a beautiful, red-haired girl who’s looking at Beca like she can’t believe her eyes.

“Well, hi,” she says, trading a surprised glance with Jesse. “Great to see you here. Jesse, you remember Emily?”

“ _Planted_ in my memory,” he jokes, and Beca hopes her laugh doesn’t sound too fake.

“I just wanted to apologize for being so cryptic earlier,” Emily says, before being elbowed sharply by the woman next to her. “Ow. This is my sister, Chloe.”

“Hi,” Chloe says breathlessly. She has on a beautiful dress and looks appropriately outfitted for a club. Emily, on the other hand, is still wearing the same cardigan and button down from earlier in the day, along with a clearly uncomfortable expression.

These two could not look less related.

“I’m sorry, I’m just,” Chloe takes a deep and flustered breath. “You were _amazing_ tonight. I’ve been a fan since…well, it doesn’t matter since when. Can I get a quick autograph?”

“Yeah, of course,” Beca shrugs, as if she didn’t just ignore a whole crowd of fans.

“Can I also get a quick picture?”

“Only if you’re single,” she jokes.

Chloe giggles and hands Emily her phone. “Well, I’ve been married for ten years, but nothing’s set in stone,” she says, squeezing herself in between Beca and Jesse.

“Also, I really wanted to thank you for that offer,” Emily says as Chloe smushes her face against Beca’s for the picture, even though Emily isn’t aiming the camera towards them yet.

“What offer?” Jesse asks curiously.

“Oh, well.” Beca winces, remembering that she hadn’t explained anything to him. “While Calamity, the rhyming psychopath — thanks for her, by the way, she was an absolute charmer — was in my apartment, Emily gave me some interesting lyrics. _Better_ lyrics, should I say.”

Jesse looks between them, confused. “I thought she was doing the plants.”

“Hey, I’m holding a pose here,” Chloe calls impatiently to Emily.

“I mean, I appreciate it,” she says, ignoring her sister, “but…”

“The truth is, I need a song by Friday,” Beca bursts out, past the point of appearing calm and collected. “And as you could probably tell, finding a sane lyricist is practically impossible.”

“Why don’t you just write the lyrics yourself?”

“Oh, because Beca sucks at it,” Jesse puts in helpfully.

“Yeah, he’s right, especially when it comes to love songs. I once tried to rhyme ‘you and me’ with ‘autopsy.’ Complete disaster of a song.”

“Well that’s not _so_ bad. You could do something with that, ” Emily says. “Like…hmm. _Figuring out you and me is like doing a love autopsy_?”

Beca turns, elated, to Jesse. “See? Isn’t that good?”

“Yeah, not bad.”

“Go on,” she encourages, motioning for more, but Emily freezes.

“I have no idea what more there is.”

“Someone could’ve sculpted us by now,” Chloe says. Beca had almost forgotten she was there, waiting for a picture.

“You know what, here, let me.” Jesse takes the phone from Emily, who looks too lost in thought to even notice.

“ _They can operate all day long and never figure out what went wrong_?”

“Holy shit,” Beca gapes, “you’re like a female Cohen.”

“W-well uh…anyway, thanks for inviting us,” Emily says, suddenly jerking out of her daze and grabbing Chloe’s hand to drag her away.

“Okay, let me just…let me just take a quick one,” Chloe protests, resisting Emily’s force and leaning towards Beca for a selfie.

She pauses just long enough to let Chloe take the picture, but that’s all the time Emily needs to hurry away, yanking her sister along as if she couldn’t get away from Beca fast enough.   

* * *

Persistence was never Beca’s strong suit. At any given moment, she’s probably giving up on something, whether it be a hobby, a book, the promise of a diet, a lukewarm friendship, or even something as important as a business e-mail.

The only exception, of course, is music. And seeing how she’s literally about to disappear from the musical world unless she gets her shit together and write the new hit single for a massively popular pop star, Beca translates her persistence in music to her persistence in recruiting Emily as her lyricist.

Which is less creepy in theory than in practice. After hours of stalkerish research and squinting at the map on her phone, Beca arrives at Weight-Not, the weight-loss company managed by Emily’s sister Chloe. She feels like a creep in the worst way, waiting for the receptionist to fetch Emily, and she debates whether this is worth the wounded pride.

Who is she kidding? Of course it is. She needs this song. She needs Emily.

She shoots out of her chair when Emily emerges from the back room, returning her awkward and surprised wave with a tight smile.

“Okay, look. I’m sorry to just drop by like this,” Beca says without so much as a hello. “But I’ve decided I can’t take ‘no’ for an answer.”

Emily sighs. “I told you —”

“I know, yeah. You’re not a writer… _except_ when you’re writing poems and short stories in the New School literary magazine.” She grins triumphantly when Emily closes her eyes in defeat. “I Googled you. And you’re _awesome_ , dude.”

“I-…I’m flattered,” Emily says. “You’re one of like, six people in the world who’s actually read those. But that doesn’t mean I can write a _song_.”

Beca’s smile grows, fully expecting that response. “You already did.” She holds up an open hand towards Emily’s confused expression. “Five minutes. Just give me _five_ minutes out of your day. Please.”

There’s clear hesitation in her eyes as they exchange a silent stare-down, probably just as aware as Beca that this is the very last effort she’s going to make to hire Emily despite her claim that she won’t take no for an answer.

“Okay,” she says finally. “Let me get my jacket.”

Beca leads Emily downtown, excited and nervous, towards a tiny music shop squished between two high-end boutique shops.

“After you,” she offers, though Emily is already floating into the store, mesmerized by all of the instruments lining the walls. “Towards the back, in that little room,” Beca says, pointing. She nods at the store manager as they pass him, and he wordlessly passes her the key to the recording room with a wink.

“Do you like, own this place?” Emily asks as Beca closes the door behind them. It’s a tiny room, a good three-quarters of it dominated by a baby grand, and Beca takes a seat on the bench as Emily runs her fingers gently over the soundproof foam on the walls.

“Just friendly with the manager out there.” She plays a few warm-up notes. “So _this_ is something that you might recognize.”

Emily just raises an eyebrow and waits for Beca to start playing.

 _Figuring out you and me_   
_is like doing a love autopsy_   
_They could operate all day long_ _  
_ and never figure out what went wrong

She finishes the tidbit of a song with an exaggerated scale, carefully watching Emily’s expression. Her smile had been a little exasperated when Beca started singing, but as the song progressed, it’d grown into something warm and genuine.  

“God, that melody,” she gushes, “it’s beautiful.”

Beca shrugs. “My music, your words.”

Emily purses her lips at that. “But I don’t write s —”

“Songs, yeah,” Beca finishes. “I know, I know. But look. If I’m wrong, then I’m wrong, okay?” She gestures helplessly. “I just…don’t think I am. I think you’re a natural songwriter.”

There’s a different light in Emily’s eyes now, and Beca’s heart does a hopeful dance. The doubt and worry that had clouded her expression every time Beca brought up the topic of writing lyrics — which, admittedly, was the only thing she ever brings up with Emily — is more or less gone, replaced with something that resembles uncertain curiosity.

It’s innocent and pure and hits Beca like a sudden beam of direct sunlight.

“Please,” she begs, now completely out of tricks. “Just work with me for two days, just until Friday. If we don’t have anything by then, it’s over anyway.”

It sounds needy and lame but there’s no point keeping up appearances now. She anxiously waits for Emily’s response.

“Yeah, okay, sure. Until Friday, right?” Emily nods. “Let’s do this.”

Beca can’t stop the smile from splitting open her whole face like a goddamn jack-o-lantern and she doesn’t even care. “Yeah. Let’s do this.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> feel free to yell at me about this au: http://moxiemorton.tumblr.com/


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Emily's finally on board as Beca's lyricist, but now it's a serious race against time to finish the demo by Friday night. And while she doesn't rush the creative process, Beca realizes that there are unexpected ghosts haunting Emily's past that hinders her ability to write in a more timely manner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is a super long chapter and theoretically I could take the time to edit and cut it down but eh
> 
> my math regarding the time left is probably VERY off so don't mind my dumb ass, unless it really bothers you just let me know which one is wrong and I'll fix it LOL

**3:38pm Wednesday (51 hours 22 minutes left)**

“Okay, so we don’t have a lot of time,” Beca explains, getting right down to business they enter her apartment. “It’d be ideal if we can use the lyrics you wrote with the autopsy bit, but it’d probably be pretty hard to get from there to ‘Way Back Into Love,’ which is the title Stacie wants.” She plucks Emily’s bag and scarf from the piano as she talks. “What we could also do is continue with Calamity’s I-hate-everyone-and-kick-puppies-for-fun version.”

“That’s plagiarism,” Emily frowns, failing to realize how Beca lunges forward to catch her jacket.

Beca freezes. “Right. Right, yeah. Good. Excellent point.” She discards Emily’s stuff on the couch. “I would _never_ steal someone else’s work,” she says, hoping she doesn’t sound as sketchy and conniving as she feels. “Okay. So what we need is something…completely…brand new.”

It’s Wednesday afternoon and Stacie needs the song by Friday.

_Dear lord, can we really do this?_

“So let’s see.” Emily pulls out a notepad and pen from her bag. “A song for Stacie Conrad.”

“Yes.”

“Has to be called ‘Way Back Into Love.’”

“That’s right.”

“And it has to be something Stacie would sing about.”

Beca nods. “Yes. Correct.”

“And it has to be something _you_ would sing about.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

Emily pauses. “What would you sing about?”

“Uh. Well, whatever gets me the job, really,” she shrugs.

“Oh, that’s inspiring,” Emily says sarcastically, clicking her pen.

It’s the blind leading the blind and there’s no way around it. Beca has the songwriting experience but not the lyric-writing skills. Emily has the lyric-writing skills but no songwriting experience. She knows they each hold a piece to complete the puzzle; it’s just a matter of putting it together.

Within the next 48 hours.

But who’s counting? Not Beca, that’s who.

* * *

**8:58pm Wednesday (47 hours 2 minutes left)**

They pass around ideas for certain phrases, both lyrical and musical, testing the waters and trying to get an overall mood for the song.

“Okay,” Emily starts for what seems like the billionth time. “Two people searching for love. For salvation.”    

Beca nods along to the _click click click_ of Emily’s pen. “Good. Yeah, deep.”

“Love lost, love found, —” _click click click click_ “— love lost again.”

_click click click click_

She bows her head over the keys as Emily thinks out loud and clicks her pen, feeling like she’s being lulled into a trance. It’s been hours since they’d started, the sky is dark, and there isn’t a single line written on the notepad. Her mind blank and fried, she puts a heavy hand on the keys and starts to play the Jeopardy theme song.

Emily gives her a look. “Thanks. That’s really helpful.”

“Look, it doesn’t have to be perfect,” Beca sighs. “Just…spit it out, I guess. They’re just lyrics.”

“‘Just lyrics’?” Emily repeats, offended.

“Lyrics are important,” she races to amend, “but they’re not as important as the melody.”

“Oh, I really don’t think you get it.” Her tone turns harsh, and Beca doesn’t want to chase another lyricist out the door, so she bites back a sharp retort.

“You look angry,” she observes calmly instead. “You should click your pen.”

“A melody is like seeing someone for the first time,” Emily says, ignoring the sarcastic suggestion and rising from her seat to lean on the piano. “You know, like the physical attraction. The sex.”

Beca leans back a little, surprised at the forwardness of her words. “Yeah, okay, I feel you.”

“But _then_ , as you get to know the person, _that’s_ the lyrics. Their story, who they are underneath.” She smiles warmly, and Beca’s foggy mind clears a little. “It’s the combination of the two that makes it magic.”

“Well then, what does that say about someone like me, who can easily make melodies but _sucks_ at writing lyrics?” she teases, pressing a chord lightly into the piano.

“It probably says you have trouble opening up.” Beca looks up sharply at Emily’s blunt but honest tone. “Let’s go for a walk,” Emily says suddenly, paying no mind to Beca’s reaction.

“A…wh- _now?_ ”

“Yeah! We need to get rid of this clutter in our heads and refresh, you know? Out on the streets, you see things and hear things and eat things. It all sorta unlocks your mind.”

And it’s not like they’re getting anything done at the moment, so Beca reluctantly agrees and follows Emily outside.

* * *

**9:12pm Wednesday (46 hours 48 minutes left)**

They make their way downtown towards the shops and restaurants in silence. Beca tries and fails to stop herself from glancing at her watch.

“This is good,” Emily nods. “This is good. When you hit a wall, you gotta change the subject, right? So why did you drop off the radar? I mean, sorry, I didn’t mean to say it like that. But Chloe said you were really popular back when you were a teenager? And it’s not like EDM is going out of style.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Beca laughs, caught off-guard by the sudden question. “Well uh…a publicity thing happened sometime around my twenties, and my label and the music industry as a whole wasn’t too happy with me.”

Emily raises an eyebrow. “A publicity thing?”

Beca smiles tightly. She’s not afraid of admitting it, especially at this point in her life, but there’s still some residual trauma from the judgement she’d faced years ago. “I was outed.”

Now both of Emily’s eyebrows shoot up.

“By someone I collaborated with. It never went public, because that’s exactly what the label _didn’t_ want,” Beca goes on to explain. “It wasn’t taboo, you know, to be like…yeah. But all the execs were scared it would affect their sales or their reputation. Or their other clients.” She heaves out a sigh. “So. They cut me out, took the last three songs I’d started on, and all of them ended up as top-charters for various artists. I had to start from scratch in a heavily saturated genre and now no one remembers my name.”

She leads Emily around the corner and into a record store. It’s almost closing time, but a good number of people still roam the shop.

“H-how did you deal with all that?” Emily asks, grimacing.

She shrugs, wandering down the familiar aisles. “Oh, you know. Drugs. Alcohol. _Lots_ of embarrassing hookups. And, about five years too late…” she flips to the back of the rack on the ‘M’ aisle, “…a solo album.”

Emily takes the CD and smiles. “Whoa, this is so cool!”

“This CD’s been in the rack for six years.” Beca points to the multitude of discount stickers covering the album art.

“Oh, come on.”

“No, it’s true. I check every other week, it’s like a fucking obsessive tick. See that little mark on the back? Yeah, that’s how I can tell.” She sighs. “It only sold like, 50,000 copies, mostly to friends and family. By the time I got up off my drunk ass and released it, people had mostly forgotten about me. Not having a label or big-name artists to back it up was also a dumb move.”

Emily gives her a sympathetic smile. “Well, you gave it a shot, right?”   

“Whether it was worth is a whole different story.” Beca tosses the CD back on the rack. “ _Rolling Stone_ called it a ‘crass, contrived effort on the part of a washed-up DJ, not even worth a high school gymnasium junior prom.”

“Oh. Well I’m sure there were other reviews.”

“There were. None of them were as nice,” she shrugs. “So, long story short, I gave up trying to produce new content, I lost a shitton of money, got evicted from my apartment, et cetera. Jesse stuck by me and got me on this weird DJ nightclub tour and managed to get some of my fans back. They were older, but so was I, so I guess it all worked out. Now it’s all late-night club gigs side-stages at festivals, but it’s better than nothing.” Beca trails off, having reached present day in her story. “Uh. Hmm, what else can I tell you?”

“I…wow,” Emily says, taking it all in. “I really appreciate you telling me all this. I mean, like, I know what it’s like, you know? To live with a shadow overhead.”

Beca frowns, wondering what kind of shadow someone like Emily could be living with. But when she opens her mouth to ask, she sees the younger girl deep in thought. “Wh-…you got something?”

* * *

**9:39pm Wednesday (46 hours 21 minutes left)**

They race back to the apartment, Emily muttering to herself the whole time, and Beca more or less throws the notepad and pen at her as soon as they’re inside. As soon as the words are scribbled down in front of her, she plays a chord — it doesn’t even matter to her which — and makes up a random melody on the spot.

“ _I’ve been living with a shadow overhead_ ,” she sings, smiling at Emily’s excited wiggle. “That’s not a bad melody, right?”

“It’s good,” she agrees.

“Thanks. Well, why does it matter? You don’t even like melody.”

Emily pouts. “Hey, I never said that.” She starts clicking the pen again.

“You prefer the lyrics, right?” _click click click_ “Yeah, okay. I don’t trust that. What’s next?”

_click click_

“Something that rhymes with ‘head.’” _click click click_ _click_ “Or a slant rhyme, those are always fun.”

But they barely progress from there. For the next few hours, Beca listens to the incessant clicking of the pen and restrains herself from smashing her head repeatedly on the piano. She knows she can’t rush Emily, that inspiration hits her in random waves, but getting one line every other day isn’t working.

* * *

**8:21am Thursday (35 hours 39 minutes left)**

“Okay,” she groans, watching the sun rise well above the distant skyscrapers. “Just…one more line. A pair line. You’re good with rhymes, just one line to go along with the first one.”

Emily takes a deep breath. “I think we should get breakfast.”

“What? No, come on, man. We’re on a roll here.” Which is a complete lie, but Beca doesn’t want to risk losing any more time. “Listen again. _I’ve been living with a shadow overhead_ ,” she sings, and gestures for Emily to continue.

“ _There’ll be no more rhymes until I’m fed.”_

“ _Please_ be serious. Just finish the phrase, ‘I’ve been living with a shadow overhead.’”

“‘I could be inspired with just a piece of bread.’”

Beca narrows her eyes at Emily. God, this girl is amazing, but not in the way she needs her to be right now. “Fine,” she snarls, grabbing her scarf.

* * *

**8:27am Thursday (35 hours 32 minutes left)**

It’s fully bright when they step outside, and all hope seems lost to Beca as they brace themselves against the chilly wind. “There’s a cafe nearby, just around the corner,” she says, leading Emily as she walks blindly forward, face buried in the notepad. “Just keep moving and keep writing.”

“Okay, how about,” Emily says, stumbling as her toe catches on an uneven sidewalk, “ _I’ve been looking for someone to shed some light_?” With her clumsy walk, unwashed hair, two-day-old clothes, and huge sunglasses, she looks like an extremely hungover club girl who’d ditched her one-night-stand for some breakfast.

Beca’s familiar with the sight.

“Yeah, yeah yeah. That’s good. Shadows. Light. Very deep. All right, we need two more complimentary lines for a full verse. What else you got? Wh-…Em-…? What?” She turns around to find that Emily is gone. There’s a crash and a rattle to her side, and she whirls in a full circle before she sees Emily flattened against the rusty grates of a closed-down shop, evidently trying to look invisible. Beca approaches cautiously. “Uh. Emily? What the hell?”  

Emily peers around the grate warily, muttering, “nothing.” She peels herself away from the wall and starts walking like nothing happened. “I just thought I saw someone, but it wasn’t him. So it’s fine.” But she stops short again as she passes the store next door, letting out a surprised chuckle as she glances at the window display. “Oh, there he is. Well, it’s a very nice picture. That’s funny, hah. Interestingly enough. Well, I mean. It _is_ a bookstore, so. Yeah, that would happen.”

Beca stares at her, confused beyond belief. “ _What_ is happening?”

“Um. Uh. Uhhhh okay. Where were we? Shadow overhead?” Emily stutters, clicking her pen nervously before Beca snatches it out of her hands. “Hey —!”

“Okay, no offense here, but you’re clearly not okay right now,” Beca snaps, trying to lace her impatience with as much concern as she can muster. “You’re like, acting a little batshit, actually. And because, as Jesse so thankfully informed me, we have about 36 hours before Stacie goes to L.A. to do _Leno_ , which means we have until then or my life is over, so it would be _pretty_ helpful to me if you were, you know. A little less batshit. You feel me? So uh, what’s going on?”

Emily looks like she’d rather talk about anything else. “Um.” She nods towards the display in the bookstore window. “Do you know this book?”

Beca squints through the window. Two copies of the book are propped upwards on top of the stack, one showing off the front cover — a generic, wannabe artsy, badly edited photo of a woman lying on her back — and the other showing off the author’s portrait that dominates the back cover. She recognizes the title, _The Incredibly True Story of Sally Michaels_ , and the tacky portrait of the author, Bumper Allen, from TV commercials and subway ads, but she has no idea what it’s about.

“Yeah, sure. Uh, it’s a bestseller or something right? I don’t really know how books work, so…”

“Have you read it?”

“Do I look like the kind of book who would read a person like this? Fuck. You know what I mean.” Emily doesn’t look the least bit amused by her stumble, and her distraught expression starts to bother Beca. “Why? Do you…not like it or something?”

She takes off her sunglasses, avoiding eye contact with Beca, and visibly struggles to get the next words out. “I’m…Sally Michaels.”

Unable to understand what the hell this girl is talking about, Beca just stares at her and waits for an elaboration.

_Does she mean she relates to Sally Michaels? Or is she saying she wrote the book under a male alias and put a random man’s photo on the back cover? Or did someone…write about Emily?_

“I-is that the cafe you were talking about?” Emily says suddenly, brushing past her and straight into the cafe without waiting for a response. Beca figures the conversation is over when she gets in line behind Emily and they find a table by the window with their orders, but the tenseness in the younger girl’s shoulders doesn’t go away even when they start filling their empty stomachs.

Beca doesn’t want to be invasive or ask too many questions; god knows she’s not exactly the therapist type. But as much as she hates to admit it, Emily needs to not be distracted by whatever’s bothering her so she can continue writing a song they have less than two days to complete.

“So when you say you’re Sally…Mumbo Jumbo,” Beca says tentatively and trails off, leaving it open for Emily to continue.

She bites anxiously at her straw and looks anywhere but Beca as she starts explaining in a shaky voice. “I’d been working at Chloe’s for years after grad school and wanted something…more. So I thought I should improve my writing, and I started taking these writing courses at the New School. And my teacher was Bumper Allen.” Emily swallows a sip of her drink with difficulty, like uttering the name causes asphyxiation. “You know. Brilliant. Handsome. And well…honestly? I was in love with him.”

Beca tries not to let any facial expressions betray the intense surprise at Emily’s confession. She thinks about the portrait on the back cover of the novel and tries to pair that sleazy-looking guy with someone as youthful and bumbling as Emily.

No judgement, but Beca’s sure she could do a _lot_ better.

“And we started spending every minute together,” Emily’s saying, “which is why I was kinda surprised when his fiance showed up.”

“Oh,” Beca chokes on her coffee. “Oh, shit.”

“Yeah, he never mentioned he was engaged to a fellow professor who was on a year-long sabbatical in Spain,” she grimaces. “When she popped by for a surprise visit and saw me, well…”

She doesn’t need to finish for Beca to get the picture. “And that was that?”

“Pretty much, yeah.” Emily bobs her head as she picks at her muffin. “Never saw him again after that. I dropped the class like a total loser, and a year later, that book showed up.”  

“The Sally…Whats-it book?”

“‘The riveting tale of a student with exalted literary aspirations who lures a brilliant writer into an affair so she can take advantage of his connections,’” Emily quotes, using an exaggerated narrator voice. “‘But when he tries to break it off, she devotes herself to ruining his life.’”

Beca frowns. “Well that could…be about someone else,” she says lamely.

Emily scoffs. “She’s a lit major from Ohio, 5’8”, all my habits — you know, talks herself, asks too many questions — and her parents founded a weight loss company in New York that now her sister runs.” She crosses her arms as if daring Beca to fight her on it. “Anyway. Since then, every time I pick up a pen I’m just… _haunted_ by those words he wrote, you know?”

“For the character?”

“And by extension, me, yeah. Something like, ‘She was a brilliant mimic. She could ape Plath or Dickinson but stripped of someone else’s literary clothes, she was a vacant, empty imitation of a writer,’” she quotes.

Beca takes a quiet but deep breath as Emily’s voice breaks on the last word, racing to find the right thing to say. She doesn’t even know this girl, and truth be told, she’s not really in the place to give out relationship advice. Or life advice. Or any advice, for that matter. The only reason she’d bothered asking for an elaboration in the first place is because of her self-absorbed mission to have this song finished by tomorrow night.

But lyrics be damned; this poor, weird girl deserves some kind of ego-booster after dealing with shit from a pretentious novelist who has nothing better to do than break his students’ hearts and publicize their humiliation in a bestseller.

“Okay,” she starts. “Well first of all, you can’t listen to the words of some jerk.”

“He’s not a jerk,” Emily says quickly. “He’s a National Book Awards winner.”

Which like, totally doesn’t excuse him for being a goddamn asshole in Beca’s opinion, but she holds her tongue. “Then get the best kind of revenge, dude. Write a hit song. He’ll hate himself every time he hears it on the radio.”

Emily offers a thin smile around her mouthful of muffin. “Honestly, I don’t think a radio hit is going to impress someone like Bumper Allen.”

“Oh, totally. Of course not,” Beca laughs drily. “Radio hits are just for idiots. Forgot that.”

“I-I didn’t mean it like that.”

She takes an angry chug of her coffee and jabs a finger at Emily. “You know what? You know what I say to you and Mr. Jerk-Off Allen? I say that you can take _all_ the bestsellers in the world and none of them will make you feel as _good_ as _fast_ as four lines of verse. A song adds another dimension to words, like _sound_ and _melody_ and _soul_ , you know?”

“Okay, that’s beside the point. What if one of _your_ heroes came up to you and said, ‘Beca Mitchell, you are a terrible songwriter’? How would you feel then?”

“I’ve written and produced songs primarily used for getting high and acting a fool at two in the morning,” Beca shoots back, unfazed. “I’ve had artists I’d admired as a kid say that my music is trash, so. Yeah, I get what you’re saying; it’s fucking awful to hear that from your heroes. But you know. After like, a good month of being depressed and over-drinking, I would get up off my ass, find a lyricist, and write a hit song.” She wiggles her eyebrows at Emily, who tries and fails to hold back a smile. “Then I would make lots of money and everyone would love me.”

She leans back and crosses her arms, point sufficiently proven. Emily still looks glum, but there’s a smile twitching at the corner of her lips, and Beca feels more accomplished than she has in a long time.

“Feel better?”

“Yeah,” Emily says quietly. “Thanks.”

“All right, come on, let’s get…what? What’s wrong?”

Gradually getting used to Emily's tendency to slip into her own headspace in the middle of a conversation, Beca watches, only slightly bamboozled, as she slowly rises from her chair and puts on her jacket. “Shadows and…” she mutters distractedly as she stares off into the distance, blindly trying to shove an arm into her jacket.

“Oh. Oh! You got something?” Beca asks excitedly.

* * *

**9:17am Thursday (34 hours 43 minutes left)**

They race back to the apartment in a confusing blur, Beca steering Emily by her shoulders as she scribbles furiously on the notepad. Tommy barely opens the door in time before they’re stumbling inside.

“Justin!” Beca calls as they race towards his desk. “Hey, can you listen to these two lines of a song and tell us how it sounds?” Emily hands her the notepad, and she doesn’t wait for his response before starting to sing, too pumped to waste another second. “ _I’ve been living with a shadow overhead, I’ve been sleeping with a clown above…my…bed?_ Wait, that can’t be right. _”_

“‘Cloud’. That says ‘cloud,’” Emily points out.

“Well write _clearer_ , that looks nothing like ‘cloud.’”

“I was _running_ ! And _why_ would you have a clown in your bed?”

“Wouldn’t be the first time.”

“Huh, yeah. Not surprised.”

“Just write in capital letters because…you know what, Justin, we’re gonna be back. Sorry.” She pushes Emily towards the elevators as they bicker, her ears bleeding from the sound of Emily clicking the pen.

“Well why don’t _you_ write then?” she shoots at Beca.

“Yeah, I _will_. You dictate. I’ll write. And I’ll write like a human and not like a tiny woodland animal.”

* * *

**9:23am Thursday (34 hours 37 minutes left)**

Returning to her apartment feels like returning to a jail cell. They both settle down in their respective seats, both of them already missing the crisp air and sunlight from outside. Emily sits down for barely half a second before she hops back out of the armchair.

“No. You know what? I don’t like this.” She tosses aside the notepad and grabs each arm of the chair, yanking it towards the piano with as much grace as a toddler pulling at a reluctant horse.

“What the hell? Oh, my god. You’re destroying my apartment.”

“I can’t write from across the room,” Emily grunts, dragging the chair across the living room and knocking various other furniture aside as she does.

“No. No, no that is _way_ too close. You’re gonna, like. No. Go back to your corner. _No_ , you can’t come here. I’m going to be completely trapped in.”

“Then go out the other side.”

Beca stares at the wall the piano is pressed up against. “ _What_ other side?”

“How ‘bout moving the piano?”

So they both throw out their backs moving the piano to the center of the room. They return to their seats, perspectives vastly changed, and Beca just accepts her fate. With the piano being closer to the window, there’s a lot more light touching the keys than she’s used to seeing. “Okay. I hate this, but okay. Fine.” She turns to Emily, who looks incredibly satisfied and comfortable, curled up in the armchair and regarding Beca’s annoyance with a serene smile. “This better inspire the hell out of you.”

Surprisingly, it does.

Though the next twelve hours fly by much faster than Beca would’ve liked, they manage to accomplish a lot more than she’d expected to. Emily completes a full verse and half of the chorus — though she insists on referring to everything as a _draft_ — before attempting to tackle the bridge. Beca fleshes out the melody and starts arranging drum and and bass parts.

They allow themselves to take an hour-long nap every six hours, alternating so at least one of them would be up to shake the other awake if they ignored the alarm.

* * *

**4:03am Friday (14 hours 57 minutes left)**

Sometime deep in the hazy late-night/early-morning hours, Emily excuses herself to fix them a pot of coffee while Beca continues playing around with the chords for the chorus, idly wondering if she should make the last chorus sound more dynamic than the first two.

“I _still_ don’t think those chords are right,” Emily calls from the kitchen, and Beca just lets out frustrated gurgle of sounds. “It should sound different from the verse!” she says defensively.

Eager to stretch out her legs and stop looking at the infuriating piano keys for a minute, Beca follows her into the kitchen and crosses her arms. “And what kind of ‘different’ did you have in mind?”

“Ugh, I dunno. Something…sadder, maybe?” She raids the cabinets for two mugs. “And I still don’t like that line about ‘places in my mind.’ It doesn’t…it’s weird.”

“It’s fine, Emily.”

“ _Fine_ isn’t _good_.”

“We only have time for _fine_ ,” she sighs. “Okay, how about this: you change your line about ‘places in my mind’ if I get to keep the chord sequence from the chorus into the bridge.”

Emily gives her a look of pure incredulance as she pours the coffee absentmindedly into the mugs. “This isn’t a negotiation! It’s either right or wrong. Inspired or insipid.”

“Oh, my god,” Beca groans. “It’s literally 4 in the god-freakin’ morning and it’s not like we’re writing an orchestral symphony; it’s a song for someone whose last hit was called ‘Welcome to Bootytown.’”

They exchange a short but heated glare, each taking in the other’s heavy eyebags, before Emily rolls her eyes and shuffles back into the living room. “I still don’t like it,” she mutters. “And it’s ‘ _Entering_ Bootytown.’”

Beca takes a sip of the coffee and immediately spits out the disgusting sludge in her sink.

* * *

**9:37am Friday (10 hours 23 minutes left)**

Morning daylight comes in the blink of an eye and Beca decides she’d rather die than continue staying awake to finish writing this song. She runs through the chorus for what seems like the billionth time, barely paying attention as she lets muscle memory finish the rest of the chords.

Emily takes it upon herself to continue her plant duties while on a break, and Beca listens with detached indifference as she shuffles around the apartment with the watering can.

“I feel like we’re so close, you know?” she’s saying, and Beca looks over blearily to see that she’s overwatering one of her window plants. “Like, we’re just not there yet. We just have to stay focused and you know, completely understand what we’re trying to say. Right?”

“Right,” Beca agrees, reaching over to pull the plant out from under the relentless stream of water. “Yeah, no, don’t let me stop you. Go ahead and start killing the next one there.”

* * *

**3:32pm Friday (4 hours 28 minutes left)**

Beca doesn’t remember signing any form of non-disclosure contract with Stacie, but she’s not sure who she’s allowed to share this song with. There are a ton of people she could reach out to for some feedback, but just to be safe, she settles for the most uninvolved person she could think of.

As soon as Emily completes the roughest draft of the song, they rush it downstairs to Justin, who looks just as taken back as he did the first time they ambushed him.

“Okay, we’re back and better than ever,” Beca announces, and without anymore of an introduction, she sings through the whole song. Justin listens intently, nodding his head, and returns Emily’s blinding smile with a polite one.

“Lyrics are good,” he offers when she finishes, and Emily jumps excitedly in place. “But I hope you know I’m tone-deaf.”

* * *

**5:20pm Friday (2 hours 40 minutes left)**

Emily’s still working on the song when the sun goes down, and with a few hours left before Stacie flies off to L.A., Beca plugs herself into her makeshift studio to start recording the instrumentals. It’d been quite a while since she’d touched her guitar or bass, so she keeps those parts as easy as she can, putting the main load of the melody on the piano instead. Since she doesn’t own a drum set, she taps out a basic beat on the percussion setting on her keyboard.

It’s a simple but catchy melody, simultaneously upbeat like a pop song, mellow like a post-break-up song, and heartfelt like a love song. This isn’t the type of music Beca usually makes, and though she’d been doubtful of the prospect of completing and performing a love song, hearing the instrumental part gives her a sense of accomplishment.

Emily flits in and out of the studio from time to time with amendments to lyrics and suggestions for new parts. More often than not, Beca’s in the middle of recording and she senses rather than sees Emily talking to her while she has her gigantic soundproof headphones on, and she has to fight to ignore this oblivious girl’s ramblings so she can continue recording without having to start over.

Emily eventually gets the hint and only comes over to Beca when the headphones are around her neck.

* * *

**6:54pm Friday (1 hour 6 minutes left)**

They squeeze into the little recording den as soon as Beca’s done compiling all the instrumental recordings. Emily hands her the final, _final_ draft of the lyrics and Beca plays the final version of the melody.

“It sounds awesome!” Emily says as Beca digs through all her equipment for the mic stand. “I can’t believe you put all of this together in here.”

“And now, all we have left are the vocals.” She places the mic in front of Emily, who immediately backs away. “No, no. You’re supposed to sing _into_ it. It’s not gonna follow you.”

“B-but…I can’t.”

“This is a duet, dude. For two people. And seeing how we have less than an hour to catch Stacie, us two are currently the best options, so.” She pulls Emily towards the mic and unceremoniously shoves on a pair of studio headphones over her ears. She looks absolutely petrified about the prospect of singing, but there’s no time for a pep talk or fruitless assurances. “How’s the volume? Is this okay?” Beca asks, playing the recording for her.

“Okay!” Emily screams, deaf to the volume of her own voice.

“Oh, my god.”

“Sorry,” she whispers. “It’s okay.”

“Cool, cool.” Beca resets the recording and joins Emily at the mic. “All righty, ‘Way Back Into Love,’ take one.”

“Oh, stars,” Emily says, panicking as the intro starts. “I’m getting, like. Really nervous.”

“You’ll be fine.” Beca pulls Emily closer to the mic again. “Just use that wonderful voice that I’ve been hearing so much of over the last three days.”  

“It’s like. Ugh. Like my throat’s closing up. It’s like, anaphylaxis or something.” She makes a choking, gagging sound that Beca’s sure she’ll die laughing over when she’s editing the recording.

“Come on, relax, it’s just a three minute song. We’ll just do one take straight through. One and done.”

And Emily doesn’t say anything else because the intro is ending and it’s her cue to start singing.  

_I’ve been living with a shadow overhead_   
_I've been sleeping with a cloud above my bed_   
_I've been lonely for so long_   
_Trapped in the past I just can't seem to move on_

Beca, too busy gaping at Emily’s amazing singing voice, almost forgets to come in.

 _I’ve been hiding all my hopes and dreams away  
__Just in case I ever need 'em again someday_  
_I've been setting aside time_  
 _To clear a little space in the corners of my mind_

Emily looks like she’s about to explode with happiness, mouthing all of Beca’s words, and Beca has to fight off the contagious smile with difficulty so they can properly sing the chorus.

_All I wanna do is find a way back into love_   
_I can't make it through without a way back into love_   
_Oh ohh_

Their voices harmonize with a frightening amount of perfection. Beca can hardly breathe through the violent beating of her heart, and when Emily turns to her with the purest of smiles, she feels her empty stomach swoop into a freefall.

Their faces are only a few inches apart.

Beca tries not to think about that when they lean towards each other to sing the second chorus and bridge, but goddamnit it’s _so_ hard when she can practically feel Emily’s smile against her cheek. Caught up in the songwriting rush, Beca hadn’t really _looked_ at Emily even though they’ve been cooped up in the same apartment for three days.

She’s cute and pretty and her smile lights up the room and Beca’s fucking doomed.

The song winds down into the outro and Beca shuts off the mic because Emily looks like she can’t hold back an excited scream. She throws her arms around Beca out of nowhere, their headphones bumping together awkwardly.

“That was amazing! Is this what you do? That was so cool!” She pushes Beca away at arms length, still gripping her shoulders. “Wow. Thank you. For getting me to do this,” Emily says, and even though Beca wants to tease her and feign deafness with the headphones still covering her ears, she’d heard every word and the heartfelt tone.

She doesn’t dare look further down than Emily’s eyes.

“Um. I should…get to editing this.” Beca clears her throat and wrenches her gaze away.  

* * *

**7:42pm Friday (18 minutes left)**

Beca finishes the song with barely any time to spare. Stacie had requested to meet in person with a hard copy — an honest to god CD — of the song, and it takes a significant amount of time for Beca to transfer it onto a disk.

When they finally get to the dock where Stacie is waiting, Beca and Emily are both winded and exhausted from the frantic journey over. The rush kind of reminds Beca of her high school days, when she would leave every assignment, no matter how important, to the last minute and throw a panicked fit two minutes before the deadline.

Stacie and her posse exit their trucks as soon as Beca and Emily clamber out of their cab.

“Ohhh my god,” Emily breathes. “It’s _Stacie_.”

“Be cool. Were you expecting someone else?”

Luke approaches with a friendly smile. “Hey, how’s it going? Stace, you remember Beca Mitchell.”

“Great to see you again, Beca.”

It makes her feel less old when Stacie calls her by her first name. “Hi. Uh, this is Emily Junk, my lyricist.”

“Hi,” Emily says breathlessly. “Well, _aspiring_ lyricist, actually, b —”

“So Luke tells me you have a song.”  

It’s been a long 96 hours and though she’d experienced Stacie’s abrupt interruptions, this one catches Beca off guard. She blinks idiotically at her for a minute before remembering the CD in her pocket. “Oh, yeah. Yeah, we do. I mean, it’s just a little — oh, okay yeah, you can just…take it.”

Stacie opens the CD case and promptly puts it into the portable CD player in Luke’s hands.

“Oh, oh my god, we’re doing it now? Okay, you’re listening to it now. Great,” Beca rambles, barely keeping up with what the hell’s going on. “Yeah, no time like the present, right?”

No one answers or humors her, and Stacie closes her eyes as she starts the track. Everyone watches her, waiting for some kind of reaction.

“She’s gonna hear my voice. It’s gonna ruin it,” Emily mutters nervously.

“It’ll be fine,” Beca says reassuringly, though she can’t fully convince herself. “It’s gonna be fine.”

It’s awkward, the three of them just watching Stacie as she stands there, unmoving and lifeless save her breathing, unable to hear the song or gauge her reaction. Beca wishes Stacie would at least tap her foot to the beat so they can tell that she’s listening to _something_.

She trades a glance with Emily when the helicopter starts up; everything’s happening too fast for either of them to really keep up.

 _Holy shit, this is it. There’s no long speech about what her decision is; she’s going to either accept the song or shoot us down and just fly off without any explanation. We literally have maybe thirty seconds to prepare for her answ_ —

Stacie removes the headphones with an unreadable expression. Beca watches with bated breath as Stacie calmly regards her and Emily, neither smiling nor frowning, before slowly stepping towards Emily and wrapping her in a wordless hug. Clearly confused but too tired to care, Emily returns the hug and raises an eyebrow at Beca only seconds before Stacie turns to the smaller girl to give her a similar hug.

When she steps back with a smile, Beca still has no idea whether she liked the song or not. It’s not until the words, “This is the song I’ve been looking for,” falls casually from her mouth that Beca releases the tension in her shoulders. Everyone, in turn, lets out a relieved breath and breaks out into laughter. “I can’t wait to work on it.”

“Congratulations, guys!” Luke exclaims, showing way more emotion in those two words than all of Stacie’s combined. The crew is already moving towards the helicopter, Stacie waving over her shoulder as her team rushes her towards the aircraft. “Thanks so much! Look forward to working with you. Congratulations!” he says again before shaking both their hands and racing after Stacie.

Hardly believing her luck, Beca turns to Emily to find her already jumping up and down, screaming with joy. “We got the job!” she screams over the whirling of the helicopter, throwing herself into Emily’s arms. “Holy shit! Thank you!”  

Emily’s giggling uncontrollably and lifting Beca off her feet and she feels high off of success and sleep deprivation. For now she just wants to focus on how narrowly she’d dodged the executionary bullet to her career and how fucking strong Emily is.

Then her phone’s vibrating in her pocket and she’s jumping out of Emily’s arms to answer the call.

“Jesse!” she screams over the roar of the helicopter engine. She doesn’t hear a word he’s saying but she doesn’t give a shit. “She loved it! The song! It’s fuckin’ bananas I know!” Beca shoves a finger in her other ear to try and catch his words. “Dinner? Yeah, definitely! Where are you?”

Emily’s watching the helicopter slowly lift off the ground and hover away, her hair flying all over the place in a huge mess. Beca doesn’t look away in time before Emily’s meeting her gaze with a tired and grateful smile.

“Yeah. We’ll be there,” she tells Jesse in a daze, mouth twitching into a smile as Emily beams at her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> main focus is finishing this fic for now but hmu with prompts and hcs if you want: http://moxiemorton.tumblr.com/


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seriously, how do all the trashy men get all the beautiful women? 
> 
> aka: the one where they blame all their stupid shenanigans on the post-songwriting sleep deprivation

Both Beca and Emily are ready to fall asleep on their feet, but it doesn’t stop them from enjoying a celebratory dinner. In any case, they’re too giddy and wound up about Stacie liking their song to rest without blowing off steam somewhere.

They join Jesse and his date at a fancy restaurant downtown. Not even their gross, unshowered bodies and grimy attire could stop them from ordering drinks and toasting to their success with Jesse. His date, a beautiful woman named Aubrey, welcomes them wholeheartedly despite having their dinner interrupted by a couple of unwashed hooligans. 

“To Emily Junk,” Beca toasts, “the woman who paved my way back to Webster Hall.” 

“Cheers!”

For the first time in a long time, Beca treats herself to a luxurious dinner and encourages Emily to do the same, feeling like nothing can bring her down. 

“That’s a beautiful dress, Aubrey,” Emily says after their orders are taken. 

“Oh, thank you! It’s nice to dress up after a day of work.” 

Aubrey seems like a much nicer human than Jesse’s ex-fiance, who Beca had the misfortune to meet one day shortly before their inevitable breakup. She trades a glance with him and gives him a small tilt of her head to show her approval. 

Emily shakes her head and looks down at her own clothes. “Oh, yeah. I  _ really _ feel you there. Where do you work?”

“I’m a therapist at Columbia-Presbyterian,” Aubrey says, and Beca chokes back a laugh at the irony of Jesse dating a shrink after his psychotic nutcase of a fiance. “Right now I’m working on a study examining the relationship of the —”

Emily lets out a soft but audible, “oh my god,” staring wide-eyed towards the bar, and Aubrey trails off to follow her line of sight. The three of them exchange a puzzled glance before looking towards Emily, who has her head bowed and face hidden.

“What’s wrong?” Beca asks. 

Still refusing to look up from the table, Emily whispers into her hands. “Bumper.” 

“ _ Bumper _ ?” 

“Shhhhh!” Emily slaps furiously at Beca’s arm. She cranes her neck to peer over the tables and scan the restaurant. There’s an entourage of men walking in and gathering at the bar, all chatting excitedly and handing their coats off to an attendant. As soon as he turns, Beca recognizes Bumper Allen’s face from the obnoxious back cover of his novel. 

By the time she turns back around, Emily’s slinking out of her seat and heading towards the bathrooms, tripping over her feet and bumping into tables in her ironic effort to remain unseen. They watch her go, letting out a breath when she makes it to the bathroom without destroying anyone’s meal.

Aubrey turns to Beca. “Is she all right?”

“Uhhhh.” She looks towards Bumper, who’s still conversing with his colleagues, completely oblivious to Emily’s haphazard journey to the back of the restaurant. “Y-yeah. She uh, always does this. Works up an appetite or something. Just…hang on.” 

Beca excuses herself from the table and makes her way to the bathroom. She passes Bumper on the way, and the snatch of conversation she overhears sounds stuffy, pretentious, and boring as hell. There’re only two single bathrooms, one for men and the other for women, and Beca prays Emily didn’t wander into the men’s room in her disarrayed state of mind.

“Emily?” she asks in a low voice. 

“He’s at the bar,” Emily’s mournful voice drifts from behind the door. 

“Yeah, I know. I saw him.”  

“Oh, god,” she groans. “I think I’ll just stay in here until he leaves. Can you send in a salad and an iced tea?” 

“Yeah, I’ll just get the waiter. Do you want to see the dessert menu too?” Beca asks sarcastically. “Look, this is ridiculous. Get out here and enjoy this fancy pants dinner you deserve! Screw him.”

Emily sighs. “I’ve been dreaming of confronting him, too. I had this speech prepared for over a year.” The door suddenly opens, almost slamming into Beca, and Emily peers out. “Do you wanna hear it?”

“Uh. Sure.” She slips into the bathroom after Emily, offering a tight smile to a man exiting the other bathroom. Despite the grandeur of the restaurant, the bathroom is tiny and cramped. Beca focuses on calming Emily down and  _ not _ on how close together they are. 

She takes a deep breath and recites her speech. “Bumper: even though Sally Michaels only lives on paper,  _ I _ live in the real world, and I can never forgive you for using me as raw material to create a fictional monster. Sally Michaels is my own personal ghost, a shadow hanging over every phone call, every cup of iced tea. And one cold day, when age has robbed your mind of its fertile phrases and your hand of its dexterity,” Emily continues, glaring at Beca and pressing forward threateningly as if she’s seeing Bumper instead of her, “all the success won’t be able to shield you from the pain you’ve caused and the shame you deserve.” 

Beca swallows, back against the wall, as the passionate fire behind Emily’s eyes die down. “…or something like that,” she says in a small voice, shoulders sagging. “But now I know I could never  _ actually _ say all that to him.”

“B-but you have to,” Beca says. “You  _ have _ to say all of that, and you have to say it now.  _ Now _ is the perfect time.  _ Yes _ , it is.” She jabs a finger at her. “You’re on top of the world! You just wrote a song for the biggest star in the universe.”

“But I can’t.” 

“Yeah, you can. People would  _ kill _ to see an ex while things are going really well. It  _ never  _ happens. You can make relationship history here.”

“But I  _ can’t _ ,” Emily insists. “I mean, look at me! I haven’t showered in days, I’m covered in songwriting grime, and I think the helicopter flew bugs in my teeth.”

And she has a point. Beca herself feels like a giant ball of dirt and grease, and looking at the bags under Emily’s eyes, it’s hard to imagine her confronting a shitty ex with confidence. But it’s not like they’d brought along a makeup kit and a change of clothes…

A sudden idea hits her. “Wait. Oh, my god. Wait. Stay here.”

Beca races back to their table and interrupts whatever conversation Jesse and Aubrey are having. “Sorry, Aubrey. This is gonna sound weird, but I have a huge favor to ask. Can you come with me to the bathroom?”

In retrospect, she knows she could’ve phrased that better. Aubrey gives a startled look at Jesse, who looks equally taken back. “Should be fine,” he tells her in a reassuring tone, though he looks pretty uncertain. Taking his word for it, Aubrey melts out of her shock and follows Beca to the bathroom, where she’s shoved unceremoniously into the tiny room. 

Fifteen minutes later, Beca hears the bathroom door open behind her and jerks out of her miniature doze. Aubrey emerges with a proud smile, wearing Emily’s clothes, and reaches in to pull the younger girl out of the bathroom.  

“Oh, wow.” Beca hates her stupid reaction but can’t deny its honesty. Although it’s not a perfect fit, Aubrey’s dress looks amazing on Emily; after seeing her in modest clothing for so many consecutive days, the plunging neckline alone is enough to vastly alter Beca’s image of her. “Yeah, this’ll work.” 

“You look great,” Aubrey agrees, zipping her makeup bag shut. “Eleven years of therapy and I finally help someone. Good luck, okay?”

Emily nods and swallows thickly. “Thank you so much.” 

“Yes. Thank you,” Beca says gratefully as Aubrey returns to the table. 

“It doesn’t…really fit,” Emily says, gesturing towards her chest, and Beca tries her damned hardest not to stare. 

“Actually, it fits you perfectly.” 

“Really?”

“Well, I’m not saying you should go to church like that, but yeah. For what you’re about to do and who you’re about to face, it’s perfect.” She gives Emily a once-over. Her hair looks presentable, her eyebags are hidden behind concealer, and Aubrey probably had some perfume in that bag, because she no longer smells like she hasn’t showered in three days. “Are you ready?”

She looks anything but ready. “I think I’m developing a sudden coronary blockage,” she says, breathing heavily through her nose and hunching forward. 

“Those pass quick, come on.” Beca drags Emily away from the bathrooms and towards the bar, ignoring her hyperventilation and insisting she’s fine, having to pull harder and harder the closer they get to Bumper. 

He’s deep in conversation with his colleagues when they approach. Beca urges Emily to get his attention, feeling a thousand times more awkward just standing there and hovering, and she manages to touch the shoulder of his jacket before turning around and trying to escape. Fed up with this flighty weirdo, Beca snatches up Emily’s hand and forces it onto Bumper’s shoulder. 

He turns, mid-laugh at whatever he’d just said, and drops his smile as soon as he sees them.

“Emily. My god, Emily?” He looks absolutely floored, both by her presence and appearance, and leans in for a hug. “How are you?” he asks, kissing her on the cheek. 

Emily visibly freezes up at the contact, and Bumper’s left looking expectantly at the unresponsive girl. Beca clears her throat softly. “I’m fine, yeah,” Emily chokes out. 

“Good, it’s great to see you,” he says, smiling genuinely. 

Emily doesn’t seem to be able to bring herself to start her speech any time soon, so Beca takes the opportunity to introduce herself during the awkward pause. “Beca Mitchell. Nice to meet you.” She holds out her hand.

“Hi, Beca. How are you?” He turns immediately back to Emily. “Well, it’s been an eternity. You…you look incredible,” he smiles slyly. “Then again, you were always mysteriously seductive, weren’t you?”

The comment makes Beca’s skin crawl. Emily just makes an absurd sound in the back of her throat, clearly unable to speak at all at this point. “She,” Beca hops in, “is writing a song for Stacie Conrad.” 

Bumper looks taken back. “What? No, wait. You’re a  _ song _ writer?”

“I…I wrote…”

“Amazing lyrics,” Beca finishes. “A lot of people are talking about them, actually.”

“Really?”

Emily’s continuing on with her pointless ramble. “I…had a pen…a paper. And wrote…” She lets out a thin, nervous laughter, turning to Beca helplessly. 

“Okay, look. Bumper.” Beca takes charge, even though the last thing she wants to do is face down someone else’s pretentious ex in the middle of a fancy restaurant with a speech that isn’t even her own. “Even though Sally Michaels only lives on paper, Emily lives in the real world. And she can never forgive you for —”

“Mr. Allen? Your table’s ready.” 

“Great, thanks Stefan,” Bumper tells the waiter before turning to his friends with a quick, “You guys go ahead, I’ll be right there.” He gives Emily a smile. “I’m sorry, um. They’re, uh. Throwing me this little dinner thing. It’s crazy how lavish people get no matter how cheap they are when Hollywood comes calling.”

“Hollywood?” Emily gasps, her voice high and her smile fake as hell.

“Yeah, I’ve finally sold out,” Bumper says with feigned modesty. “They’re making a film out of  _ Sally Michaels _ .” 

“Really?” Her voice, if possible, goes an octave higher.

“It’s been crazy, yeah. I wrote the script and now we’re seeing actresses, and it’s been…you know.” His excitement fades as he regards Emily again. “Listen, it’s great seeing you again. Let’s meet up, okay?” He leans in again to kiss Emily on the cheek, and offers her a gentle, “Take care of yourself.” He pauses to look at Beca before moving towards his table. “Take care, Becky.”

Emily’s fake smile drops to the floor as soon as he’s gone. Her breathing starts to pick up and she looks close to vomiting. 

“Well,” Beca starts casually. “Must feel good to get that over with, right?” She grimaces at Emily’s murderous expression. 

“I just wanna go home,” she says through gritted teeth. 

“Okay. Okay, okay.” Beca looks over at Bumper’s table and feels her temper flare. “Just…hang on, okay? Stay right here. Just give me one second.”

She strides over to the table and taps on Bumper’s shoulder. “Sorry, hey, sorry to bother you,” she says as politely as she can as he stands slowly from his seat. “It just…it would mean the  _ world _ to her if you’d let her say what she came here to say.”

“Yeah, I know what she came to say, okay?” Bumper says, dropping his pleasantries. “Some sad little story about how I ruined her life? Am I right? While the truth is…” he hesitates like he’s embarrassed. “She seduced me so that I’d help her get published, okay?”

“Oh, come on,” Beca snaps, “you were engaged and didn’t even tell her.”

Bumper puts a hand on her shoulder. “I’d say we’re done talking.” He returns to his seat without another word. 

By now she’s ready to throw hands with this absolute dickwad of a human. She looks over at Emily, who’s gesturing frantically towards the door and mouthing “let’s go, let’s  _ go _ ” and looking like she’s about to throw up. 

There’s really no reason for Beca to be going this far; this man is a complete stranger to her, someone who’s done her no personal wrong. Emily’s clearly ready to give up and leave, so why can’t she just let it go and let this girl deal with her own demons? 

Beca holds up one finger in Emily’s direction and taps Bumper’s shoulder again. 

“Listen,” he says in a dangerously low voice as he stands back up. “Why don’t you just shove off?” he suggests, pushing lightly at her shoulders. 

_ Shove off? What is this, the sixth grade? _

“Oh, thanks, but I’d much rather  _ you _ shove off,” she counters, pushing him back.

Bumper regards her with calm disdain. “Take it easy,” he says, shoving harder.

“Uh, no, I don’t think I  _ want _ to take it easy,” Beca says, knowing it’s a lame comeback but shoving Bumper hard enough for him to stumble into his table to make up for it. 

All hell breaks loose. 

She can hear Jesse shouting from his table but she’s too busy wrestling furiously with Bumper to hear what he’s saying. Beca’s only been in one fight in her late teens and she’d been drunk as hell at an afterparty, so she has no idea how to properly throw a punch. She knows she should be embarrassed about causing such a scene in a fine-dining establishment, but she’s way too sleep-deprived and angry to care. 

Until her size and overall weakness turn against her and Bumper’s twisting her arm and slamming her facedown onto the table. 

“All right!” Jesse joins the mix and pulls at Bumper’s arm. “Watch the hands, watch the  _ hands _ ! She’s working a gig this weekend, don’t damage the hands!” He shoves Bumper off of her and pulls her protectively towards him. “Both of you,” he mutters worriedly, pointing at Emily, “go home.” 

* * *

Emily accompanies Beca home, worried that she’s in too much pain to make it back on her own. Which is  _ absurd _ , Beca’s perfectly  _ fine _ , if not a little sore from the brief and sudden fight. They trudge into the apartment, tired and defeated. Getting Stacie’s approval for their song seems like a distant dream, a memory from another life, and Beca feels like absolute crap.

Forgetting that they’d moved the piano to the middle of her living room, Beca checks her hip against its side and hisses out in pain.

“Are you okay?” Emily asks, concerned, as she flicks on the lights and helps Beca to the couch.

“Yeah, no. I’m fine, thanks. Cherry on top.”

“You should get some ice on that.” Emily points to the small bruise on Beca’s face from where Bumper had shoved it against the tabletop. 

“Only if it comes with whiskey,” Beca calls after her as she rushes into the kitchen.

“I can’t  _ believe  _ you convinced me to do that,” she groans as she rummages in the freezer. “Now I’m more of a joke to him than ever.  _ And _ , to top it off, I’ll have my own personal nightmare playing on 3,000 screens. And you know what the worst part is?”

Beca shrugs even though Emily can’t see. “You…stole Aubrey’s dress?”

“The worst part is that he still have some kind of power over me,” Emily answers her own question, emerging from the kitchen with a bag of ice while wearing the dress in question. “I still care what he thinks about me.”

“I’m sorry, but  _ why _ ?” Beca asks, unable to wrap her head around it. “The guy is a fucking  _ dick _ .”

“Well, that’s easy for you to say, but —”

“No. No, he’s a dick. It’s not a question, it’s a fact.”

“But —”

“ _ No _ , you can’t fight me on this. He’s. A. Dick. Okay, you know what? Here’s what I think,” Beca rolls on, getting fired up. “I think, honestly, you’re afraid of losing that hate you have for Sally Michaels because then you’d have nothing to hide behind and you’d have to stand on your own two feet.” 

Emily raises her eyebrows in surprise. “Wow. That was…real. Didn’t see that one coming.”

“Yeah, well. I have amazing insight. I’d use it on myself, but I clearly don’t have problems of my own.” Beca leans forward on the couch, afraid she’ll fall asleep mid-conversation in such a comfortable position. “And I’ll tell you my other insight,” she continues, “I think you’re way too talented and gifted…and unique to let anyone keep you from standing.”

The smile that touches Emily’s sad expression practically shatters Beca’s heart into a thousand pieces. “That’s wonderfully sensitive, Beca,” she says, eyes softening, “especially from someone who wears such amazingly scary ear spikes.” 

Beca scoffs. “They pick up everyone’s thoughts and worries like radio antennas. Makes me a great listener.” 

With a small laugh, Emily joins her on the couch and presses the bag of ice to Beca’s face. “Listen,” she says softly, cupping Beca’s other cheek and forcing their eyes to meet. “You were amazing tonight.”

_ She’s so close oh god she’s so close holy shit she’s so pretty _ . 

“So were you,” Beca manages to say breezily. “The few syllables you got out? Absolutely devastating.” 

Emily’s smile could probably end wars and invoke world peace; Beca could stare at it all day and still not get enough. 

“Is this ice making you feel any better?” 

Beca bites back her own smile. “Yeah. It would if it was on the right side.”

“Well, your bruise is so tiny I couldn’t tell. Drama queen.”

“ _ I’m _ not the one who grabbed a whole-ass bag of ice for the ‘tiny’ bruise.”

Emily narrows her eyes playfully and shifts to reach for the correct side. But instead of lifting the bag of ice, she leans in and presses her lips to Beca’s cheek. 

Beca’s pretty sure she permanently loses the ability to breathe. 

When Emily pulls away with a small smile, Beca’s sure she also loses the ability to speak. 

“W-…uh. Th-…that…yeah,” she stutters like an absolute moron. “Y-yeah, that, um. Felt a lot better.”    

They lock eyes and there’s a sudden fragility to the moment, like if either of them move too fast or talk too soon, the spell will break and they’ll realize what’s happening. Emily is still hovering inches from Beca’s face, either unable to or unwilling to move away, a curious smile lingering on her lips. Even though the dark bags are making a reappearance from under Aubrey’s makeup, she looks breathtakingly beautiful. 

Hyper-aware of her thundering heartbeat, Beca reaches out slowly for Emily’s face, taking her time and hesitating more than once to give Emily more than enough time to back away. She doesn’t; if anything, she leans into Beca’s touch, closing her eyes as her cheeks turn the barest shade of pink. 

There’s a question hovering in the air, elusive enough that neither wants to ask it but tangible enough for both to feel it. Beca runs the pad of her thumb as gently as she can across Emily’s bottom lip, praying that her fingers don’t tremble and show just how terrified she is. 

She’d never fallen so fast and so completely over such a strange and messy whirlwind of a girl, and she knows if she thinks too hard about it, she’ll freak out and screw this up. 

She holds her breath as Emily inches closer.  _ It’s okay _ , her eyes are saying,  _ I’m okay with this if you are _ . 

So Beca leans in and closes the gap. 

It’s a soft and tentative and kiss at first, neither of them daring to breathe as their lips brush shyly against each other. Beca suppresses a shiver at the sensation and the thought that this is  _ Emily _ — the spacey, off-beat, clumsy girl who talks too much and over-waters her plants — who she’s so shaken up over. It’s like this is her first kiss all over again, the anticipation overshadowing the emotional weight of the moment. 

Then Emily lets out a shaky breath and deepens the kiss, arms circling around to pull them closer together. Beca’s mind goes blank. Nothing has ever felt so good and so  _ right _ as Emily’s mouth moving against her own, fingers tangling in her hair, breath hot against her face. 

And with literally nothing holding her back from giving herself what she wants for once, Beca slides off the couch and gently pulls Emily to the floor. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ye I have like a dozen prompts in my inbox already but??? send me some if you want?? sorry I suck
> 
> http://moxiemorton.tumblr.com/


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